Crafting & Professions

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Crafts (similar to professions or tradeskills of other MMOs) are traits that characters may learn regardless of

Crafting and the Recipe Book

their class or race. Characters can learn their craft of choice beginning at level 40, and you can only learn two crafts.

Weapons and armor are the tools by which those whose adventures find them in the dangerous lands of Hyboria live or die by. Likewise there is always a need for potions and other medicinal aids, as even the hardiest of warriors can find themselves in need of recovery.

This is where the crafts come in. Crafters in Age of Conan are those making essential items and equipment needed for them and their guilds to succeed in extended battles and harsh conditions. Supplying everything from siege engines to weapons, crafters are the people keeping their friends and customers supplied with the goods that will see them through the dangers that threaten them at every turn.

Trained in various pharmaceutical and metallurgical arts, the Alchemist specializes in creating various compounds with strange and seemingly unnatural effects. Utilizing both common and rare ingredients found around Hyboria, those trained in this art may provide many useful consumables to their allies for use both in and out of battle.

City-building is an integral part of Age of Conan, and you will need someone skilled in the arts of architecture to draw up the plans needed for the different buildings. Concerned more with the "big picture" than simply making equipment or potions, the architect is set on designing the more impressive buildings and siege engines used to wage war in the Border Kingdoms and beyond.

Similar to the weaponsmith, the armorsmith focuses on crafting various pieces of protective gear in addition to ways to enhance said equipment. Having many avenues available to them in terms of advancement, the armorsmith may choose to provide a very wide variety of armor styles, ranging from cloth to full plate.

Taking advantage of the skills of the armor and weapon smiths, the gemcutter specializes in honing and crafting gems to decorate and enhance equipment. As the gemcutter is familiar with working with a fresh set of armor or weaponry, they can also provide some more straightforward modifications such as counterweights or other reinforcement.

As the name implies, a weaponsmith specializes in making various forms of weaponry for arming those he plans to support in battle. Picking up this trade allows you to craft various types of weaponry, from swords to staffs, daggers to crossbows - everything needed to kill your opponents!

In the world of Hyboria there are certain locations where crafters congregate to form societies where they can practice their trade. These are commonly called resource and gathering regions as they are areas with a special abundance of resources needed for crafting, and here you will also find many who are more than willing to teach others how to practice their trade.

Upon reaching level 40, you need to seek out a crafting trainer who can teach you his or her trade. This will be your mentor on the long road ahead, sending you out on various quests where you need to prove your worth as a crafter. The important thing to remember is that you can only have two crafting profession, so choose wisely before dedicating yourself to your mentor!

Funcom strives to make it so that crafting is as intuitive as possible, while still maintaining the level of challenge that makes progression so entertaining. When you’re ready to start crafting something, all you do is bring up your recipe book and click on what you want to create. If you have the required resources in your inventory, the item will be created for you. There are certain exceptions to this, as some of the top tier recipes will require that your guild is in possession of certain types of structures within the guild city. Some of the top tier alchemy recipes will, for instance, require your guild to have an alchemist’s workshop constructed within the guild city.

Once you have chosen a crafting profession you will start out small, with little knowledge of how to create anything at all, much less anything of real use! Now it’s time for you to prove your worth to your trainer, allowing you to craft more and more advanced items over time.

Professions are harvesting tradeskills that player characters may learn regardless of their primary character class or race. Unlike crafts, any character may learn all six gathering and harvesting skills, with no limit to their advancement beyond their player's patience in gathering the required resources.

NPC teachers for each of the six skills may be found in any of the game's three resource zones (Purple Lotus Swamp, Poitain, and Lacheish Plains), clustered in the villages located there. These three zones are also rich with resources. Beyond those three zones, however most game areas also have resource nodes within them, usually suitably geared toward the level of characters who will normally be in that zone.

Characters need to be at least level 20 to begin their initial resource gathering quests. A second set of quests are available at level 50, and the final set of quests is available at level 70.

To advance to the next tier in resource harvesting, a character must complete the previous tier's quests for that resource.

In addition to the standard and rare harvests, some nodes offer "incidental harvests". These harvests are obtained in addition to the normal or rare harvest from the node and do not drain any resources when they are obtained. Some incidental harvests include: